5 Best Butt Exercises

April 30, 2010

All you need are simple bodyweight butt exercises for great glute workouts and to tone your tush. Plus, you can do all of the best bodyweight butt and thigh exercises standing up.

The first exercise is the wide stance squat. By positioning yourself in a wide stance you are more easily able to push your hips back, helping to work the back of your legs more when you squat. So in this butt exercise, push your hips back while squatting down and squeezing your glutes, and then come back up.

The next bodyweight exercise targeting your butt that you will perform is the Waiter’s Bow. With this exercise you want to take one hand and pinch the skin of your lower back, while taking the other hand and placing it across your chest.

In this position, you will bow forward as if you were a waiter at a table and squeeze your glutes to come back up. Only bend as far over as you can while still squeezing an inch of skin from your lower back at the bottom position with your hips pushed back. If you’re inflexible, then you’ll more than likely feel a stretch in your hamstrings as well.

After the first two butt exercises you’ll move on to a split squat, also known as the stationary lunge. To perform this exercise, place one foot forward, and one foot backward. Drop your hips straight down and squeeze the glute and the quadriceps of that front leg to come back up. You back leg will be used solely for balance.

The next bodyweight exercise is a little more dynamic and it’s known as the reverse lunge. Step back, drop your hip straight down, squeeze your glute, and then pull yourself back up.

After the reverse lunge you will then perform the step-up. In this exercise it is important to stand far away from the bench. Too often people stand too close to the bench, shifting the focus from the butt to the quadriceps when stepping up. To really feel this exercise in your butt be sure to stand far enough away from the bench and drive through your heel while coming up. On the way down, slowly return using the back of your upper leg to lower your body.

The final exercise in the bodyweight series for building a better butt is the Bulgarian split squat. Essentially, this exercise is the same as a split squat; however, your back leg will now be elevated. Again, you will want to drop your hips straight down, using your glutes to come back up.

So that is the beginner bodyweight series to building a better butt and I’ve outlined them from easiest to hardest. If you want to add another level of difficulty, then you can also perform the workout using dumbbells or you can do the exercises in a circuit. If you are going to do the circuit, then do all the exercises with no rest in between, take a one minute rest before repeating the circuit 2 more times. As well, you will want to perform each exercise for 8-12 repetitions.